Rebuild

Brown Bears
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After last season’s step forward and the promise and excitement that accompanied the start of this campaign, a sixth place finish, a losing record in Ivy play and missing out on what may be the only tournament Brown hosts is disappointing. Yes, there were injuries and they had a loss to the portal, but these problems impact everyone in the league.

I will always be an optimistic Brown fan, and always love our team, but they’ve had a winning record in Ivy play only twice in the last 16 years and have never finished higher than fourth during that period. What can Brown do to become a regular top-half, Ivy tournament team?

Losing five seniors, it seems like a rebuild is in the cards. Wrisby-Jefferson and Lewis emerged as key contributors; Lesburt will have to take on a more important role; Rochester seems ready to step up. Hopefully Dabo and DeGraaf can take steps forward. We got good
Minutes throughout the year from Jenkins, Uchidiuno, Barron. The incoming class looks talented. Who will step up next year?

More broadly, how does Brown crack into the top tier consistently?

Despite the sad finish, thanks to the team and coaching staff for an entertaining season and for building a program that makes all of us Brown alums, students and friends proud. Ever true.

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Great question, Pat.

To me, the biggest step forward the program could take would be to renovate the basketball facilities. I love the Pizz, but if I didn’t have a sentimental connection to the place, I wouldn’t have many positive things to say about it. I imagine we’ll be hearing about it from other fanbases this coming weekend and I can’t blame them. The new video board is nice, but it’s just putting make-up on the proverbial pig. President Paxson hasn’t been afraid of putting money into athletics - case and point being the $70 million indoor turf facility currently under construction behind the OMAC. I don’t know what kind of renovations would be possible, but they are needed.

I think that the staff does a good job of evaluating and developing talent. The quality of recruit coming into the program has improved significantly in the time that I’ve been following the team. It will be interesting to see if Mike can continue to pick up transfers - guys like Wojcik and Hunsaker were key parts of some of his better teams and helped him overcome weaker recruiting classes. A big ‘what if’ for me is what this team might have looked like if they had managed to hold on to Jacob Dar, the D2 transfer was committed to Brown, before changing his mind and heading to Rice, where he ended up having a nice season, albeit for a team that finished 4-14 in conference play.

The only other thing that comes to mind is whether Mike would consider a Brian Earl/Dave McLaughlin-esque “Come to Jesus” moment in regards to his tactics. I don’t think that Dartmouth’s roster, on paper, is more talented than ours. However, the changes they made clearly instilled confidence in the group and had them playing inspired defense - they went from the worst defense in the league in 2024 to the best this year.

Next year will be an interesting one. It’s hard to know exactly what the league will look like, given the transfer portal and the new coaches coming in, but as of today, I wouldn’t have us in the top 4.

I do think we could be a good defensive team next year, but if you throw out a line-up of Jenkins, Wrisby-Jefferson, Lesburt, Lewis and Dabo, I don’t think you’ll score a lot or efficiently.

Where does your shooting come from next year? Lesburt is great when he’s on, but he’s streaky - he was 10/18 from deep against Columbia and Cornell, but 2/13 in the final three games. They have a sharpshooter from New Jersey, Brady Loughlin, who is coming in next year, but I don’t like to bet on an immediate carry-over of high school shooting performance.

I am hoping for a Jaylan Gainey-esque evolution for Dabo, given the promise he showed as a shot blocker this year. Like Gainey, I don’t think his offensive game will ever be anything more than dunks off of lobs and easy second-chance buckets, but I’d love to be wrong about that.

I don’t think you’re suggesting this, Pat, but your post does lead us to another question: Is it time to think about moving on from Mike Martin?

12 years, 70 Ivy League wins, 2 finishes in the top 4, it’s not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of. He represents the program well, seems to be well-liked by his players, and has stuck around longer than most of his predecessors. Then again, he hasn’t had a season that was even close to the best seasons that Robinson and Miller had. I would love for him to be the guy to take us to the promised land, but he is the longest-tenured coach in the league without a tournament appearance.

I think the league is only going to grow more competitive. Penn and Harvard under-performing opened the door for the Bears, but I don’t think you’re going to be able to count on that for much longer. Columbia hasn’t had any trouble recruiting of late, so with a more competent coach, I expect they won’t be at the bottom of the league for long.

Anyway, this is all to say, I think Grace Calhoun will have some decisions to make in the coming years and those will speak to what the hopes and expectations are for this program.

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This is a great summary, ET. I hadn’t thought of the Pizz as a factor. I guess its comparable to some of the lesser venues around the league (Dartmouth? Cornell? Lavietes?) It gives off a mixed-use vibe. I wonder if an upgrade of any sort is feasible. Considering that it replaced Marvel not all that long ago, it feels dated. These things are often a factor in recruiting. Maybe they should rebuild Marvel!

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I can’t speak from first-hand experience for either Cornell or Dartmouth. Lavietes is smaller than the Pizz, but has been recently remodeled and, in my humble opinion, is much more pleasing to the eye. I do know that Dartmouth made some improvements - Leede Arena Improvements Announced - Dartmouth College Athletics - prior to this season. Perhaps Cornell will make some updates to Newman prior to their turn hosting Ivy Madness, but they already have the third largest capacity in the league at 4,473.

As far as I can tell, there are plans for something in the pipeline. The athletic department’s strategic plan mentions a “Erickson Complex Optimization Plan” and the university’s most recent Institutional Master Plan makes reference to an “Athletic Facility” to be constructed in the next 10 years. That being said, given the current political environment, who knows what university expenditures and priorities will look like 6 months from now, let alone 10 years.

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Brown seemed in desperate need of scoring, folks that can create shots and hit them consistently

Jefferson has such a nice tear drop floater plus the size to be really competitive piece in this league

Coaching was often puzzling for me especially when you have the ex Valpo coach as a resource;, prioritizing initial sets to Cooley in the post at Yale when he was outsized by like 4 inches seemed like a pre historic approach to offense

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It was a maddening Ivy season. I said this on the other board but to have Kino - who may be the most talented player to ever wear the brown and white - not play in the ILT as a senior when Brown hosted was a travesty. They blew games, rode Kino too long, and had nothing in the last two. But it was lost well-before then.

I take your point on the staff. I think sometimes it’s as simple as when the shots go in they’re geniuses and when they don’t they’re the problem. What Martin & Co. have done is build a much stronger culture, they’re running a much better program than we’ve seen - even getting fans there in big games.- and they have managed to sell Brown to some very good players. I personally think Brown is the 2nd or 3rd-toughest sell in the league. I’m not quite enough of a student of the game to know if the staff has done really well with what they have, or if they too have underperformed. But while the results are on average better than they’ve been historically, you’re right - they haven’t won enough, even when they’ve had All-Ivy talent.

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Good to see you over on this board, Bruno. You have plenty of company here in your disappointment this season!

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I second that, TigerFan! I always read Bruno’s posts on the old board and had no way to respond or ask question. Hopefully, he can encourage the other posters to join this board instead of the old, closed board.